Chapter 40 #2
“Christ in Heaven!” a young priest shrieked. He quickly slammed the door shut. élisabeth put her finger to her mouth. From the other side of the door they could hear Father de Sancy’s voice.
“What is it?”
“It is a… an abomination,” the young priest stammered.
“Be ready,” élisabeth signalled, turning to face the door. The girls spread out, their hands stretched before them. élisabeth heard sturdy footsteps and knew the witch hunter was coming to see for himself. The door opened slowly.
“Onésime Gaudin de Sancy,” élisabeth intoned, and raised her arms slowly. The other brides repeated her words in heavy, lifeless tones. The priest’s name echoed around the room into a crescendo of sound.
Father de Sancy stood in the doorway with a taper in his hand, two younger priests cowering behind him. One held an iron poker.
“Who are they?” the younger priest whispered. “What are they?”
“You know who I am,” élisabeth said. One by one the girls repeated her words. You know who I am. You know who I am. You know who I am. They were back on the ship, singing in rounds. But this time, rather than joy and hope, their song brought darkness and despair.
“I am Angélique Aubert de Brétigny,” élisabeth bellowed as the ghostly chorus picked up the words and turned them into an incantation.
The priests cowered, just as she said they would. The one with the poker brandished it at them. élisabeth pushed on, hoping the girls could keep up.
“I am la Fille du Roy,” she declared. “I am the Warrior Maid. I am the Winter Witch.” The spell echoed around the room. The Winter Witch. The Winter Witch. The Winter Witch.
“It is just as I said it would be!” Father de Sancy exclaimed with a voice full of wonder as he lifted his candle to peer at them. “Why—the witch queen is controlling the coven. She… she is commanding the others to do her bidding. Just as I said!”
“They look like a gaggle of women in their shifts to me,” a young curé countered warily.
élisabeth quivered with fear. If the priests doubted them, the witches would be lost. They would be rounded up, publicly whipped for their deception, and Marthe would die in childbirth. Her knees started to knock as badly as they ever had when Marcosi roamed free inside her.
Marcosi. The she-wolf with wings.
élisabeth knew what to do. Drawing on the demon’s strength, she threw back her head and with all the force in her body let a howl rip from her throat.
The sound was so raw, so painful that one of the priests dropped his candle to cover his ears. After a moment’s hesitation, Lou also threw her head back and howled, then Rose and Francoise followed, and the rest. The priest with the poker flung the tool down and bolted back up the stairs.
“I am Angélique Aubert de Brétigny!” élisabeth cried. “La Fille du Roy! The Warrior Maid! The Winter Witch!”
The Winter Witch. The Winter Witch.
“Begone, demon!” Father de Sancy wheezed, his voice high and panicked. He panted, struggling to catch his breath.
“Give me back my doll,” élisabeth commanded, and the other women echoed her demand.
“No.” The priest lunged forward and grabbed her by the arm.
His grip was so fierce that élisabeth thought she might cry out.
Instead, she flopped forward at the waist as if she were the ragdoll they had come to find, leaving the priest holding on to an empty husk. He stared at élisabeth’s limp body.
“You cannot stop me,” Rose said, picking up the lead, and the other brides repeated her words. Cannot stop me. Cannot stop me. “I can fly at will between the innocents. I am the witch queen. I inhabit whomever I please.”
Father de Sancy dropped élisabeth’s arm and spun to face Rose.
He opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again.
By the light of the candle she could see the sweat glisten on his reddened face.
élisabeth slowly raised herself back upright, as if she were a marionette being lifted from on high.
She watched out of the corner of her deadened eye as the old priest glanced over his shoulder.
The other Sulpicians had fled upstairs. He was alone. Still, he took a step towards Rose.
Suddenly Wari spoke from the other side of the room. “Give me back my doll.” The witches echoed her words. Give me back my doll. Give me back my doll.
De Sancy spun around, and seemed startled to find that there was a native woman among the coven. “I will not… will not… bend to evil.”
“You are the Evil One,” élisabeth cried.
The Evil One. The Evil One. The Evil One.
“Give me back my doll!”
“Never.” The priest lunged to one side of the room and grabbed Jeanne Roy’s ragdoll by the neck. It had been sitting in the shadows, unseen, on top of his books. “Is this what you seek, witch?”
Even by the dim candlelight she could see the strain on his face and the flush spreading up his neck as he brandished the doll at the group of women. The priest was sweating, trembling, an old man with hunched shoulders and shaking turkey jowls. He was weak.
She raised her right hand and pointed her finger at him.
Straight and strong, like she had seen the old woman in the tavern do, that night so many months ago.
The finger that had put so much terror into her own heart.
One by one, faces blank, the other girls did the same.
Soon the old priest was surrounded by a coven of witches ready to lay their curse.
“My hand shall drop, and you will writhe in agony!”
In agony. In agony, the brides repeated.
“Unless you give me back my doll.”
My doll, my doll, my doll. The ghoulish brides formed a circle around the priest.
“Stay back,” he cried, holding it above his head. élisabeth let out another chilling howl. The sound of twelve more wolves reverberated behind her. She stepped forward.
“No,” Father de Sancy gasped, clutching his chest. The doll drooped in his hand. He could no longer hold it up.
“Writhe in agony,” élisabeth chanted, casting her spell.
Writhe in agony, the brides repeated. The priest fell to his knees, the doll tumbling from his hand.
His eyes widened at the coven surrounding him.
His face had grown ashen. His mouth opened and closed, a fish on land unable to breathe.
He stared at élisabeth with a face full of horror.
She let her hand drop. A dozen arms fell to their sides, rustling as they collapsed against crisp nightdresses. The priest grabbed his heart with both hands and fell forward, his head smashing against the stone floor.
“It is just as I said it would be,” he sighed, as a slow trickle of blood pooled beneath his head.
élisabeth grabbed the doll from his lifeless hand and sprinted for the window. “Run,” she yelled over her shoulder.
The coven dissolved, breaking off in every direction, some following élisabeth through the window, some slipping through the front door onto the seminary lawn.
The witches screamed and whooped at their triumph, throwing their heads back to laugh at the risen moon.
élisabeth saw a face peeking from an upstairs window and let another wolf howl rip from her throat as she clutched the doll and ran as fast as she could.
élisabeth flung open the bakery door and saw Francoeur at the hearth with Jambon and Lajeunesse. They had escaped the jailor.
Her husband’s eyes widened at the sight of her. “élisabeth, what—”
She ran past him to fling back the curtain to the widow’s room. There was Marthe, her eyes closed, her face pale and damp. She was barely alive. élisabeth thrust the doll at Jeanne Roy.
“Here,” she heaved. “Here is Chamberlen’s Secret.”
The witch took it from her. “Thank you,” she said calmly. “Now, get me a knife.”
“A knife?” élisabeth hesitated only for a moment, then plunged back into the widow’s salon.
“A knife!” she shouted at them all. Jambon’s hand flicked to his belt and handed her his hunting blade.
élisabeth grabbed it and turned to duck behind the curtain again.
She held it out to Jeanne Roy, flat in her hands like a sacrifice.
In one swift movement the witch grabbed the knife and sliced off the doll’s head.
The rag lump rolled onto the floor. Jeanne Roy stuck the blade into the doll’s back and gutted it. The cloth and stuffing fell away and its bones were revealed.
“What… what is that?” élisabeth gaped.
The doll’s bones were wrought-iron blacksmith’s tongs. In the place of pincers were a pair of curved iron hands.
“This is Chamberlen’s Secret,” she said. Even the witch’s voice was full of awe.
élisabeth stared at the device in Jeanne Roy’s hands. The black claws looked like an instrument of torture that might be heated in coals and used to pull out a liar’s tongue. Jeanne Roy kneeled in front of Marthe.
“Marthe, come to the edge of the bed. I am going to use these forceps”—Jeanne Roy held up Chamberlen’s Secret—“to pull out your baby’s head. If I can free the first child, I think the other will follow naturally.”
élisabeth swallowed as she stared at the iron hands. Father de Sancy had been right. Chamberlen’s Secret was a magic wand that could pull a child from its mother’s womb. She hoped that Jeanne Roy was a skilled enough sorceress to know how to wield it.
“Marthe, this is your salvation.” élisabeth crouched by her sister’s side, taking hold of her hand. “Say your prayers with me now. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Say it with me, Marthe. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb…”
The sisters prayed together. Jeanne Roy crouched between Marthe’s legs, murmuring to herself as she cast her spell.
élisabeth watched as the witch pulled Chamberlen’s Secret apart, putting her hand inside her sister to insert one of the two tongs.
Marthe whimpered and convulsed and called out to Saint Anne.
When the second tong was inserted, Marthe hollered in pain.